and the most estimable qualities of her sex, no praise of mine can make any addition. Hence arifes that uniformity of fubject and fentiment which distinguishes the Rambler from other papers of the like kind; but how great muft its merit be, when wanting the charm of variety and that diversity of characters, which, by the writers of them, was thought neceffary to keep attention awake, it could fupport itself to the end, and make instruction a fubftitute for amusement! Nor can this defect, if it be any, be deemed a deviation from Johnson's original purpose, which was not fo much to instruct young perfons of both sexes in the manners of the town, as in that more important science, the conduct of human life; it being certain, that he had it in his power as well to delight as to instruct his readers; and this he has in fome inftances done, not only by the introduction of fictitious characters and fancied portraits, but by ironical farcafins and original strokes of wit and humour, that have, perhaps, excited more fmiles than the writings of many, whofe chief purpose it was, like that of L'Eftrange and others, to make their readers merry.

And hence we may take occasion to observe, the error of those who diftinguifh fo widely between men of study and reflection, and fuch as are hackneyed in the ways of the world, as to fuppofe the latter only qualified to inftruct us in the offices of life. Lord Chesterfield, in his letters to his fon, takes every occafion to exprefs his hatred of an university education, to brand it with pedantry, and to declare that it unfits a man for focial intercourfe. Some have afferted, that travelling is the only means to attain a

knowledge

knowledge of mankind; and the captain in Swift, in a lefs extensive view of human life, fwears that

To give a young gentleman right education, • The army's the very best school in the nation.'

To say the truth, there are numbers of men who contemn all knowledge derived from books, and prefer to it what they call turning over the great volume of the world. I had once a gardener that could not endure the mention of Miller's dictionary, and would contend with me, that practice was every thing;' and innumerable are the inftances of men who oppose mother-wit to acquired intelligence, and had rather grope their way through the world, than be indebted for inftruction to the researches of others. Such men as thefe, in fituations they have not been accustomed to, are ever aukward and diffident; and it is for a reason nearly a-kin to this, that few rakes are able to look a modest woman in the face. On the contrary, the attainments of Johnson were fuch as, notwithstanding his home-breeding, gave him confidence, and qualified him for the converfation of perfons of all ranks, conditions, characters, and profeffions, fo that no fooner had the Rambler recommended itself to the favour of the public, and the author was known to be of easy access, than his acquaintance was fought, and even courted, by perfons, of whom many, with all the improvement of travel, and the refinements of court-manners, thought that fomewhat worth knowing was to be learned from the conversation of a man, whofe fortunes and course of life had precluded him from the like advantages.

Johnson's talent for criticism, both preceptive and corrective, is now known and juftly celebrated; and had he not difplayed it in its utmost luftre in his Lives of the Poets, we should have lamented that he was so fparing of it in the Rambler, which feemed to be a vehicle, of all others the most proper, for that kind of communication. An eulogium on Knolles's Hiftory of the Turks, and a fevere cenfure of the Samfon Agoniftes' of Milton are the only critical effays there to be found; to the latter he feems to have been prompted by no better a motive, than that hatred of the author for his political principles which he is known to have entertained, and was ever ready to avow. What he has remarked of Milton in his Lives of the Poets is undoubtedly true: he was a political enthufiaft, and, as is evident from his panegyric on Cromwell, a base and abject flatterer. His ftyle in controverfy was farcaftic and bitter, and not confiftent with chriftian charity; and though his apologists endeavour to defend him by the practice of the times, there were in his time better examplars than he chose to follow, the writings of Jewel, Mede, Hooker, Dr. Jackson, and others, his predeceffors in religious and political controverfy; nor does he feem in his private character to have poffeffed many of thofe qualities that most endear men to each other. His friends were few, Andrew Marvel, Marchmont Needham, and the Vane; younger and Cyriac Skinner, Harrington, Henry Nevil, John Aubrey, and others, members of that crack-brained affembly the Rota-club, all republicans; and there is reafon to fufpect, from the fternnefs of his temper, and the rigid difcipline of his

family,

family, that his domeftic manners were far from amiable, and that he was neither a kind hufband nor an indulgent parent. But neither thefe nor those other qualities that rendered him both a bitter enemy and a railing difputant, could justify the severity of Johnson's criticifm on the above-mentioned poem, nor apologize for that harsh and groundlefs cenfure which clofes the first of his difcourfes on it, that it is a tragedy which ignorance has admired, and bigotry applauded.'

The reflection on that enmity of Johnfon towards Milton, which I have above remarked, leads me to mention another inftance of it, which about this time fell under my obfervation. A man of the name of Lauder, a native of Scotland, and educated in the university of Edinburgh, had, for reasons that will hereafter be given, conceived a hatred against the memory of Milton, and formed a fcheme to convict him of plagiarifm, by fhewing that he had inferted in the Paradife Loft whole paffages taken from the writings of fundry modern Latin poets, namely, Mafenius the jefuit, Taubman a German profeffor, the editor of Virgil, and joint editor with Gruter of Plautus, Staphorftius a Dutch divine, and other writers lefs known; and of this crime he attempted to prove him guilty, by publishing inftances in forged quotations, inferted from time to time in the Gentleman's Magazine,' which not being detected, he made additions to, and again published in a volume intitled An Effay on Milton's ufe of and imitation of the moderns in his Paradife Loft, dedicated to the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, 8vo. 1750.' While the book was in the T 2

prefs,

prefs, the proof fheets were fubmitted to the infpection of our club, by a member of it who had an interest in its publication, and I could all along obferve that Johnson seemed to approve, not only of the defign but of the argument, and seemed to exult in a perfuafion, that the reputation of Milton was likely to fuffer by this difcovery. That he was not privy to the impofture I am well perfuaded, but that he wished well to the argument must be inferred from the preface, which indubitably was written by Johnson.

The charges of plagiarism contained in this production, Lauder has attempted to make out by citations to a very great number, from a Latin poem of Jacobus Mafenius a jefuit, intitled, Palæftra ligatæ eloquentiæ,' from the 'Adamus exul' of Grotius, the Triumphus Pacis' of Caspar Staphorstius a Dutchman, from the Latin poems of Cafpar Barlæus, and the works of many other writers. For a time the world gave credit to them, and Milton's reputation was finking under them, till a clergyman of great worth, learning and industry, Mr. now Dr. John Douglas, prompted at firft by mere curiofity, fet himself to find out and compare the parallel paffages, in the doing whereof he difcovered, that in a quotation from Staphorftius, Lauder had interpolated eight lines taken from a Latin tranflation of the Paradife Loft, by a man named Hogaus or Hog, and oppofed them to the paffage in the original, as evidence of Milton's plagiarism. Proofs of the like fraud in paffages cited from Taubman and many others are produced by Dr. Douglas; but a fingle inftance of the kind would have been fufficient to blast the credit of his adverfary.